For a few hours, many believed it would happen. In the end, however, it was to happen later. On Saturday, September 21, Alexandre de Moraes, a judge at the Federal Supreme Court, confirmed the suspension of social media platform X in Brazil. The day before, the group owned by Elon Musk had announced the appointment of a legal representative in the country, a condition imposed to end the blockage. But the move was deemed insufficient by the courts. X was given five days to file additional documents.
It's been almost a month since the showdown between the billionaire and the magistrate, who, on August 30, ordered the "complete and integral" suspension of the social network in Brazil. Accused of being an incubator for fake news and a haven for far-right "digital militias," the group has refused to obey court injunctions which had ordered the blocking of accounts of personalities suspected of threatening democracy.
The 22 million local users of the platform have been forced to adapt. "Brazil has suddenly become an experiment for a 'life without X'," said Joao Victor Archegas, a legal researcher at the Institute of Technology and Society in Rio de Janeiro. In a country "addicted" to smartphones, this is a landmark event. According to Kepios, a consulting firm specialized in digital technology, the average Brazilian spends three hours and 37 minutes a day on social media, or four and a half days a month...
"The suspension initially had an impact on the many Brazilian influencers who promote products or events online," continued Archegas. One example is 34-year-old lawyer and publicist Babi Magalhaes, who had over 400,000 followers on X. "That's where you'd hear [about an] event first, immediately, or a few minutes after it happened. The other platforms simply reproduced and amplified the news," she explained.
But with the social media blocked, the influencer found herself, in her words, "out of a job." "I've tried to transfer my activity to the Threads and Bluesky platforms [which operate in a similar way to X] but the vast majority of my followers aren't there. I'm also trying to be active on Instagram but it's a visual, image-based language that I find very hard to master. You have to be beautiful, made-up, well-lit... it's not my thing: I'd rather write," Magalhaes said.
The second victims of the suspension were journalists, who were constantly on the lookout for reactions from celebrities and breaking news on the platform. "Today, X is really failing us," admitted Patricia Campos Mello, reporter for the daily Folha de Sao Paulo. Admittedly, with Elon Musk, the level of debate and the quality of the algorithm had deteriorated considerably. But it was still possible to take the pulse of Brazil and find out in real time what was stirring society."
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